by Jan Colley
“Why, Adam?”
Her quiet question reminded him of all the things that had gone through his mind when Stewart made the demand. Watching the news break yesterday illustrated that he was no better than her mother or her ex. The publicity may not have been intentional but still, he’d hung her out to dry as nonchalantly and effortlessly as they had done before him.
“Because I hate that it’s made things worse for you. I hate that I’ve made you sad. You’ve suffered enough.”
Jasmine smiled. He warmed to see it. “Thank you, Adam,” she said quietly. “That’s very kind, but it won’t be necessary.”
Despite his earnest desire to help, relief washed through him—followed by a sharp jet of green suspicion. “You’re not going to do anything stupid, are you? I won’t let you marry Ian…”
Her nostrils flared. “That’s not for you to say,” she said sharply.
She had told him that after what happened last time, the pressure her father put on her to marry the neighbor drove her away. No way would Adam let that happen.
“But, no,” Jasmine said in a more reasonable tone. “I’m not marrying anyone.” She looked down at his hands, still on her knees. “You owe me nothing, Adam. The engagement was my misguided attempt to give my father some pleasure before he died.”
Adam wondered how the old man had taken this.
As if she’d read his mind, Jasmine smiled ruefully. “And you can imagine the pleasure he is feeling today.”
“I bet,” he said feelingly. In his limited acquaintance with Sir Nigel, he could almost feel the wind of disapproval and censure from here.
“We’re even,” she continued. “I did you a favor, you did me one. It was my stupid idea that caused all this trouble. My fault, not yours. You did everything I asked of you—” she covered one of his hands with hers “—and more. You gave me Vienna.”
She lifted her hand from the all too brief caress and brushed at her top. With her pale face and hair tightly tied back, the shadows under her eyes, she looked so much less, somehow, than the night of the ball. Not less beautiful, just faded and smaller than before. Adam’s heart squeezed in his chest. He would make this up to her, he promised himself. Somehow…
He rose to his feet, for once in his life unsure of what to say, to do. “Nick said you’d resigned,” he said to the crown of her head.
Jasmine merely nodded.
“Why, Jasmine? You love that job and you love New Zealand.”
She exhaled and looked out the window. A minute ticked by before she answered. “I do. But the Jasmine over there is not the real me. She was just a front, born to hide my problems.” She looked at him, her eyes clear. “I haven’t got it all worked out yet, but I need to be here for my father. It would be a mistake to leave England at the moment. There are things I started here that I never got around to finishing.” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “In fact, there is a lot of unfinished business in my life. I think it’s time I faced up to it.”
Eleven
A dam checked his watch for the tenth time. Where were they? His most important guests had flown halfway across the world to be here tonight, and yet the party had been going for an hour and there was no sign of them. John and the events manager of the Café de Paris kept shooting him raised-brow looks, reminding him that the venue was booked for another event in an hour.
No one was more pleased than Adam when Nick said they were coming. He’d made a flip comment like he was just keeping an eye on his investment, but Adam knew his brother was behind him all the way. It hadn’t been as difficult as he’d imagined, going cap in hand to Thorne Financial Enterprises and asking them to underwrite the new company’s debt, should some or all of his big investors pull out.
“Why would they do that?” Nick had asked.
“Because I’m going to tell Stewart Cooper that he can stick his investment where the sun doesn’t shine,” Adam had replied.
After leaving Jasmine last week, he knew he’d missed a golden opportunity. He’d needed a little more time to get used to the idea that he loved her. Some last-gasp vestige of confirmed bachelorhood had its claws into him still. She’d have been nuts to accept his pathetic proposal.
“The natives are getting restless,” John said at his elbow.
With a last look around, Adam followed his friend to the front of the gathering. Sure, he was disappointed Nick hadn’t made it but that was nothing compared to his disappointment that Jasmine hadn’t showed. Hardly surprising, given the media contingent here.
As he stepped up onto the small stage, he ran his fingers over the tiny box in his pocket. Before the night was out, he’d have a private audience with her, and the second chance he hoped her generous nature would allow him.
Someone handed him a microphone and he called for quiet.
“I’m Adam Thorne, and this—” Adam clapped a hand on his partner’s shoulder “—is John Hadlow. We are pleased to welcome you all to the international launch of Thorne-Hadlow Investments.”
He looked out over the sea of heads at the business icons, friends and invited media, and launched into his well-rehearsed speech. He was midway through when he caught sight of his brother and father right at the back and breathed a sigh of relief.
“There are many people to thank. It’s been a long road, but without my family’s support, and that of a few select friends, we wouldn’t be here today.”
He finished his short speech and stepped back so John could say a few words. His former mentor, Derek Bayley of Croft, Croft and Bayley, was next and that concluded the formalities. The hundred guests continued to graze on the food and drink provided and Adam began to work his way through the crowd of well-wishers to the back of the room, simmering with impatience. He’d say a quick hello and then flag the family meal he’d arranged downstairs in favor of a couple of hours’ drive and some unfinished business at Pembleton Estate. This time he would do it properly, give her reasons she could live with.
A plethora of camera flashes lit up the back of the room. Adam craned his neck and saw the tall figures of Nick and his father, head and shoulders above the throng of people. A swish of gold fabric and blond ringlets by Nick’s shoulder confirmed the photographic interest. Nick’s fiancée, Jordan Lake, stopped traffic wherever she went.
Adam stopped abruptly, his eyes snagged on a deep-red off-the-shoulder dress, close to his father. He stretched tall, but with half the crowd turning and moving to see what the fuss was about, he could only pick out parts—long, blood-red baubles at her ears, a flash of white teeth, glossy dark hair pulled back in a stylish twist. The cameras flashed again and Adam’s heart gave him a kick.
Jasmine. A strong impulse to melt into the crowd and escape gripped him. Was he ready for this? Matrimony? Love? It went totally against his life plan, the goals he’d set, his vision of his future. All the valid reasons why not had hammered through his brain at regular intervals for days.
The crowd noise around him hushed and the people in front stepped aside, their eyes moving between him and Jasmine with fascinated expressions. Adam stood as if in the spotlight, wishing he were anywhere else in the world, until she half turned and saw him.
A small, uncertain smile played across her face. Adam’s heart slowed and swelled and for the first time since the day he met her, he felt at peace.
It was hard not to make a dramatic entrance at the Café de Paris; the opulent decor, impressive staircases and air of grandeur demanded it. Jasmine forced herself to hold her head high but in reality, if she wasn’t firmly supported by Randall on one side and Nick and Jordan on the other, she would have bolted at the first camera flash. As it was, she sagged at the second.
“I’m right here, girl,” Randall rumbled in her ear, holding her arm firmly. On the other side, Jordan’s eye-catching beauty and vivacity pulled a few of the cameras off her face, for which Jasmine was grateful.
They were late. That was her fault. She’d argued loud and long against going, but her surpris
e visitors to Pembleton wouldn’t take no for an answer. They’d caught most of Adam’s speech but she barely heard a word. The pain was too raw, her nerves stretched to breaking at the prospect of more denigrating publicity in tomorrow’s press.
She had spent the last week keeping busy to take her mind off Adam and his kind-hearted marriage proposal. This afternoon, Nick had looked over the business plan she’d put together for the bank and pronounced it excellent. She’d spent hours working on her lists, talking to her father and Gill and prioritizing the multiple ways to best drag Pembleton into the twenty-first century.
As Adam stepped down from the dais and headed in their direction, she thought how ironic that he had offered the thing she wanted most—marriage to him—and she had turned him down. Accepting his proposal, born of guilt and pity, would be as bad as accepting Ian, who only wanted her for the estate. Jasmine vowed to forget about love, marriage and children and concentrate on her father in the short term and Pembleton in the long.
Suddenly the crowd parted and Adam walked toward them, tall, confident, larger than life, and his eyes on her face. She forced herself to breathe, told herself over and over that she could do this, she could be friends with him on this auspicious occasion. But oh, it would be so much easier in a less public forum, without oafish reporters loudly querying the current status of their relationship and cameras going off left, right and center.
In the interests of public relations, she offered him a smile and he smiled back and ran his hand down her arm. “I’m glad you came,” he murmured in her ear, leaning close.
“Shall we go?” Adam turned to the others. “I’ve booked a table downstairs.” He glanced at Jasmine. “It will be quieter down there.”
They ate a relatively private dinner with a couple of Adam’s friends and the family. Randall was, as usual, the loudest and best company. Jasmine warmed to see how he had taken to his daughter-in-law-to-be. After all the angst between Randall and Jordan’s father, Syrius, she could scarcely believe how close they’d become in such a short time.
But as soon as dessert was cleared away, Nick began yawning and making jet lag excuses, belaboring the point so much that Jasmine quickly saw through his act; her boss was determined that she and Adam be left alone. Maybe he hoped Adam could talk her into coming back to work.
The Thornes and entourage left. Adam put her coat around her shoulders and suggested a walk. The night was crisp and cold, with no wind.
“Uncle Stewart didn’t come?” she asked, pulling her gloves on as they began to walk slowly toward nearby Trafalgar Square.
Adam shook his head. “I didn’t expect him to.”
A phone call from her uncle a couple of days ago had thrown Jasmine into a quandary. She had made a promise to her father, but Stewart begged her to come. The old man felt terrible about the publicity he’d unwittingly sparked.
While speaking to him, she realized that he was lonely and wanted nothing more than to belong to a family. Now she told Adam a little of Stewart’s history. “His father kicked him out of home very young because he wanted a career in the music industry, not the done thing for an English country gentleman.”
Her uncle had discovered and managed what became one of the world’s biggest glam rock bands in the seventies. The predecessors of punk, glam rock bands were the outcasts of the music industry with their makeup and glitter and rocky ballads, but a handful of artists had huge success. “He met my mother in the mid-seventies when he was riding high,” she continued. “Naturally her parents hated her going out with someone so anti-establishment, so they had to sneak around and she pretended to be going out with my father instead. And then she got pregnant and my father married her.”
“Did he know who the father was?”
“I’ve never had the nerve to ask him,” Jasmine said quietly. Talking about personal matters was not the done thing around her father. “Stewart lost everything, his own family, the love of his life, his son. I’m not surprised he’s bitter. He’s so alone.”
“Are you going to keep in touch?”
Jasmine nodded. “Yes, but I’ll have to be discreet. I don’t want to upset my father. He’ll never make his peace with Stewart now.”
“You don’t know that. By all accounts, Dad and Syrius are making an effort for Nick and Jordan’s sake. Enough, at least, to sit down together at a family engagement dinner.”
Jordan had told her as much. Syrius and Randall had been close friends before the accident that had put Syrius’s wife in a wheelchair and robbed him of his son.
They walked onto Trafalgar Square, her eyes automatically gravitating to where the Christmas tree had been until a few days ago. She sighed. Another year older, but wiser? She didn’t think so.
She clapped her cold hands together. “I’ve broached the possibility of Stewart coming to live at Pembleton when Father passes away—provided Gill agrees, of course. I feel disloyal but…it was Stewart’s home, too, you know? I feel he has as much right to be there as I do.”
Her uncle had no intention of kicking her and Gill out after her father died, even though she had failed to marry and provide a male heir. She glanced sideways at Adam. Best not to mention the word marriage in present company.
Adam pursed his lips thoughtfully. “What did he say?”
Jasmine’s eyes misted with emotion. Stewart had nearly wept when she’d asked him. “He would dearly love to see Pembleton again. I think he would enjoy being involved and I could certainly use the help.”
She’d told Adam over dinner about the improvements she’d instigated in the redevelopment of Pembleton Estate. She had already hired the contractors to develop the golf course. The events program could wait for now while she concentrated on setting up the new Antiques Center.
“I’ve asked him to tell me about my mother, let me get to know her through his eyes, because I never really knew her at all.”
Stewart had said he would gladly oblige in return for having the pleasure of watching Jasmine’s children grow, but she decided Adam didn’t need to know that.
“And is he going to tell you about your mother?” he asked.
She nodded. “Maybe it will fill a hole in both our lives.”
Jasmine recognized that she’d closed herself off from the world, afraid of reaching out to people. Perhaps that stemmed from her mother’s abandonment, perhaps not, but she knew she had some growing to do.
Adam stopped and leaned against one of the famous lion bronzes, flanking Nelson’s Column. “I think you’ll be very happy there, amongst all your old relics.”
“I’m going to try,” Jasmine said.
He was right about her passion for history. Pembleton could be her museum. It would take years to unpack, catalogue and restore the treasures packed away. Now that she’d resigned and made arrangements to pack up her Wellington house and put it on the market, she needed to keep busy and to heal her heart. That particular relic would be packed away safely, perhaps never to be exhibited again.
Given her love for the man watching her right now, that was a bleak prospect. Feeling the need to lighten the mood, she craned her neck and peered up the length of Nelson’s Column.
“Do you know why some rum is called Nelson’s Blood?”
Adam shook his head, looking interested. Jasmine admired his tolerance for her historical prattling.
“When Admiral Nelson was killed,” she began, “the ship’s officers preserved the body in the crew’s vat of rum and halted their rations. But when they got to England, they found the body well preserved but the vat empty. Unbeknown to the officers, the crew hadn’t liked giving up their daily tot and so had drilled holes in the vat to get at their rum.”
Adam pulled a face. “Well, that’s certainly set the scene for romance.”
Jasmine tilted her head but her query died on her lips when his eyes locked onto hers and became serious.
Her heartbeat began to rattle. Oh, please, not another of those great, addictive surges of longing. She’d
tried sleeping with him without losing her heart. It hadn’t worked.
Adam reached out and took her hand in his. “Marry me, Jasmine,” he said simply.
Jasmine closed her eyes, cherishing the words but wishing that they came from his heart and not some warped sense of responsibility.
“We’ve been here before.” She sighed.
“No,” he murmured. “We haven’t.”
When she opened her eyes, Adam stood in front of her, holding a tiny red box. Her mind howled foul—it was unfair of him to tempt her so much when she was at her weakest. Inhaling, she called on all of her composure to crush the surge of hope that burst within her. With more poise than she knew she possessed, Jasmine raised her eyes to his, but could do nothing about the hitch in her breathing.
“Adam, we discussed this. I won’t marry for the wrong reasons. Otherwise why not just marry Ian and be done with it?”
Adam squeezed her gloved hand. “What about the right reasons?” He paused and then inhaled deeply, working up to something. The pressure on her hand increased. “Such as love?”
Jasmine blinked and felt frozen in time. Was he saying that he loved her?
He held out the box. “Open it.”
She eyed it almost fearfully, then shook her head. There was too much longing, too much dashed hope for her to take that step.
He opened it. She tried, she really did, not to look at it. Instead, she searched his face, looking in vain for sympathy, the anguish and guilt she’d seen a few days ago. There was only strain etched around his mouth and his serious, waiting eyes.
She looked down and blinked several times. The stone was huge, a perfect cushion-cut diamond surrounded by smaller round diamonds. The band was handcrafted platinum, delicately millegrained around the square shoulders. It was a true Edwardian antique or at least, manufactured to a very high standard of reproduction. Either way, it was the most beautiful ring she’d ever seen.
She ghosted a step closer, unable to take her eyes off it.